nutrition facts

[greentea]

Hi Jeff,
I watched your talk "health food vs healthy food" on the vsh site. It was really interesting & what an eye opener. I had a question about % calories from fat. Up here in Canada, you rarely see this listed on the nutrition facts. Is there a way to work out the percentage based on the numbers on the package? For example here is a label from some whole wheat tortillas:

If anyone is interested here is the link to the talk:
http://vsh.voip-info.org/Novick.html

[dlb]

Greentea -

Fat has 9 calories per gram. So if the label says 6 grams (I can't exactly read it) it would have 54 calories of fat. Dividing the 54 by the 190 would give you about 28% fat for each tortilla. If that is a 5, then you would have 24%.

Donna

[JeffN]

Hi Greentea

Donna's response is correct.

Just take the grams of fat and multiply by 9 to get the calories from fat.

Another way, which involves a little more math, is that there should be no more than 2 grams of total fat per 100 calories.

Both will get you to the same place, but the first one may be easier, as serving sizes are standardized to 100 calories.

In Health
Jeff

[greentea]

Thanks Donna & Jeff! I think I'll go with the first option as that math looks a little easier. I really stink at math

[Purdy]

Hey, while you're at it, take a look at the sodium.
That label says just 1 tortilla has 470 grams of sodium.
Seems rather high for a product of 65 grams.

How come they load so much sodium into a whole wheat product?
Makes life very difficult for those who want to avoid sodium.

Now remember, when you eat anything in Canada, you have to divide by 12 to adjust for the population difference

[JeffN]

Hey, while you're at it, take a look at the sodium.
That label says just 1 tortilla has 470 grams of sodium.
Seems rather high for a product of 65 grams.

Good Catch!!

At 190 calories, the sodium is almost 2.5 times my guidelines. For a calorie dense product, such as tortilla, that is fairly high. I would recommend trying to find one that has a lower sodium level as there are several out there.

In Health
Jeff